2024 South Dakota State Legislative Priorities

What We're Fighting For 

Victory in the fight against cancer requires bold new public policies that promote cancer prevention, early detection of cancer, and expand access to quality, affordable health care. Lawmakers make many decisions that impact the lives of South Dakotans touched by cancer and their leadership is vital to defeating this disease.

In 2024 the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN) will work with the South Dakota Legislature on legislative and regulatory efforts that address disruption in cancer care and screenings; preserve affordable, adequate access to health care insurance including Medicaid; as well appropriations funding for lifesaving cancer screening and prevention policies that help people that use tobacco products quit and deter kids from ever using tobacco products. We will be making the following evidence-based policies a priority and ask for your support:

Ensuring Access to Quality Care

• Preserve Voter-approved Medicaid Expansion Free From Work-reporting Requirements: ACS CAN will advocate for the will of the voters of South Dakota to be respected fully and Medicaid expansion to continue as it was approved by South Dakota voters in November 2022. That means free from proposed work reporting requirements that will place burdensome paperwork government mandates on hard-working South Dakotans. Potential implementation with cause South Dakotans to lose coverage and certainly face diminished health outcomes and worse.
• Access to Biomarker Testing: ACS CAN will advocate for improved coverage of comprehensive biomarker testing. Progress in improving cancer outcomes increasingly involves the use of precision medicine, which uses information about a person’s own genes or proteins to better diagnose and treat diseases like cancer. Biomarker testing is an important step to accessing precision medicine which includes targeted therapies that can lead to improved survivorship and better quality of life for cancer patients, but insurance coverage for biomarker testing is failing to keep pace with innovations and advancements in treatment. Legislation is needed to ensure all South Dakotans, regardless of income, geography, race, ethnicity, or age, can access biomarker testing.  

Cancer Prevention and Early Detection 

• Breast and Cervical Cancer: ACS CAN will advocate to increase funding for All Women Count!, the state breast and cervical cancer screening program for low-income uninsured and underinsured women administered by the South Dakota Department of Health.

Reducing the Toll of Tobacco

• Tobacco Prevention and Cessation Funding: ACS CAN will work to fund and sustain evidence-based, statewide tobacco use prevention and cessation programs at $4.5 million.

For more information, contact:

• Ben Hanson, South Dakota Government Relations Director, [email protected]; 701-446-8634
• Carla Graciano Sarinana, South Dakota Grassroots Manager, [email protected]; 605-705-4164

ACS CAN is making cancer a top priority for public officials and candidates at the federal, state, and local levels. ACS CAN empowers advocates across the country to make their voices heard and influence evidence-based public policy change as well as legislative and regulatory solutions that will reduce the cancer burden. As the American Cancer Society’s nonprofit, nonpartisan advocacy affiliate, ACS CAN is critical to the fight for a world without cancer. For more information please visit www.fightcancer.org.